Wiki Loves Monuments is the world’s biggest photographic competition and takes place every September. Participants take photos of historic places, including buildings and archaeological sites.
Wiki Loves Monuments encourages photographers around the world to upload photos of heritage monuments to Commons so that they can be used to illustrate Wikipedia. Images from Wiki Loves Monuments in the UK have been seen nearly 14 million times in October.
This year, over 14,000 photos were submitted to Wiki Loves Monuments in the UK. The prizes are sponsored by Wikimedia UK and Archaeology Scotland, with a top prize of £250. The winning photos’ subjects range from prehistory right through to the 1930s. The overall winner was of Brighton’s derelict West Pier by Matthew Hoser, who said:
“I have been lucky enough to travel quite a lot over the past few years of studying in the UK, and so when I recently heard about the Wiki Loves Monuments photography competition I jumped at the chance to get involved for the first time. This country has such rich and varied history, so taking photos of the amazing sights around Britain is a real pleasure. I am so glad to be able to share my photos with the Wikimedia community, and hopefully to make people eager to get out and see more of the UK for themselves!”
Second prizewinner, Paul Stümke took an atmospheric photo of Glenfinnan Viaduct in Scotland, also winner of the Archaeology Scotland sponsored best photograph from Scotland. He said:
“I have not taken part before in WLM but I have seen last year’s winners. I liked the idea and since me and some friends travelled around Scotland from August to September by bicycle I was able to capture some stunning landscapes, famous monuments and other things that seemed worth photographing. When I edited the photographs back home I saw the advertisement for this year´s contest and thought to myself, why not participate? This is a great way to get some of my pictures out to the world.”
The winners of the Special Prize for Scotland (sponsored by Archaeology Scotland) and Wales depict the Smailholm Tower by Keith Proven and Craig y Mor by Sterim64 respectively.
All photos on Commons are shared on Open Licenses, such as Creative Commons Sharealike 4.0. CC licenses allow others to use the images for free as long as they attribute the author. Wikimedia UK encourages people to publish free content which anyone can use in a classroom, journalistic articles, art, on Wikipedia or for any other purpose without worrying about its copyright restrictions.
Here are the full list of winners:
1st Prize
Derelict West Pier on Brighton seafront by Matthew Hoser
2nd Prize
Glenfinnan Viaduct at Loch Shiel by Paul Stümke
3rd Prize
De La Warr Pavilion Art Deco building on Bexhill seafront by Oliver Tookey
Highly Commended
Smailholm Tower near Kelso, Scotland by Keith Proven
Martello tower at Felixstowe ferry by Tony Lockhart
Westminster and Big Ben by Farruk Ahmed Bhuiyan
Perch Rock Lighthouse portrait by Mark Warren
Smithfield Market ceiling by Stevekeiretsu
Balcombe Viaduct by Matthew Hoser
Avebury South West quarter looking North East in snow by Paul Adams
Special Prize for best photo from Scotland and Wales:
Smailholm Tower by Keith Proven
Craig y Mor by Sterim64
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